I am pleased to announce that this is what we're finding in our nesting boxes at the end of the day! After a few years of selecting chicks each spring with egg color in mind, our girls are collectively laying an egg rainbow. That tiny one on the right is from one of our bantam hens who occasionally produces a miniature egg. Not only is it exciting to get this many different colors of eggs, ...
Chickens
Free Woodchips!
A trailer load of woodchips really is something to crow about around here! While the chickens did a fine job of supervising, a huge thank you goes to Mountain Man Corey for collecting and spreading the woodchips around the blueberries and raised beds while I was under the weather last weekend. Little by little we're getting ready for the next growing season and it's looking to be a ...
Free Range and Fancy Free
There is something very relaxing about watching chickens go about their wanderings. I have heard their scratching and foraging compared to Zen meditation, and although I'm not successful at sitting still long enough to meditate, those chickens look like they have it figured out. I recently got a copy of The Way of the Hen: Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens by Clea Danaan, and I will let you know ...
Little Red Rooster
There was a raucous noise out in front of the house early this morning, and when I went out to investigate, my suspicions of a young rooster in our flock were confirmed. Paul Bunyan is pushing up daisies, a new rooster is taking his place, and so the circle continues on. He's got quite a job to do filling that big old rooster's shoes, but he seems scrappy and up to the task. He reminded me of ...
A Poultry Family Portrait
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In Memory of Paul Bunyan
We said goodbye to our old Brahma rooster, Paul Bunyan this weekend. He was the best rooster I've ever had, always gentle with people and respectful to the hens. He was my farm sidekick through thick and thin, following along with me through some big life transitions and three moves over the last few years. He started the mornings off with his crowing from my homestead in Elmira to the cottage at ...
The Best Peep Show Around!
Ms. Frizzle went broody again this spring, just like every year, so I decided to make it a win-win situation for everyone and got nine fuzzy little chicks from the feed store for her to raise in her own private brooding pen in the barn. Ms. Frizzle took all those fluffballs under her wing immediately, and she is now the proud mama chicken of five assorted bantams, two Welsummers, one Maran and one ...
Chicken Chats
Everyone, even chickens, need a friend to lend an ear from time to time. Apparently, Paul Bunyan is a good listener. If only I could have been a fly on the wall for this conversation. What do you suppose they're chatting about? ...
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
I love having chickens for neighbors. I really do. But honestly, I do not love having them on my front porch. Having spent countless hours in the past trying to fence chickens in, the approach we took with this homestead was to let them completely free range outside of the fenced in yard and garden in the back of the house. This was working out just fine until our friendly, curious chickens ...
Winter Nesting
I have often said that most of the work of keeping chickens involves either trying to keep them in where they're supposed to be or trying to keep them out of where they're not supposed to be. Chickens are inherently full of mischief, and you can always count on them being up to something you don't want them to be doing. Over the winter break, we lucked out with some warm, sunny days just perfect ...